


can you understand, even a little?

by Phlyarologist



Category: Carnacki the Ghost-Finder - William Hope Hodgson
Genre: Extra Trick, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27274084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phlyarologist/pseuds/Phlyarologist
Summary: Carnacki passes an intense night in a room with something creepy.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	can you understand, even a little?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [syrupwit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/gifts).



> Hey, recip - I discovered Carnacki through the tagset for this exchange, and I really have to thank you for the new reading material. The Carnacki stories really are both spooky and peculiarly endearing, for all the reasons listed in your letter. I hope you enjoy this little snippet, and happy Halloween!

Carnacki sat inside the Electric Pentacle. Something snuffled around the corners of the room.

Something had bellowed at him so hideously when his flash went off that for several minutes he'd been senseless with dread. This ought to have helped him place the manifestation in the taxonomy of spirits; he ought to be planning the next day's proceedings. But his mind was empty; he could only hope for firmer possession of his wits when he developed that plate. People were only people, however seasoned in matters ab-natural. Any man could only endure so much of the extra-human darkness before his will would be shaken; it was not to his discredit. He held to his shredded nerve and a protective braid of garlic, and around and around paced the presence.

He had closed his protections in time, so survival required only that he wait out the night. The Professor of Archaeology, on whose request he'd come, had been skeptical. Only the poor fellow's arm was visible from this vantage, but the dying tattoo his heels had beaten on the parquet was testimony to his fate. Carnacki, in a cold sweat, had watched the blood puddle under that arm, worried it would run and break his pentacle – but the blood dried in place.

Still the presence shuffled about and scented for him, balked only by the weak electric glow. Carnacki stared into the dark, his back muscles spasming in protest at his long stillness, and at refusing the impulse to bolt like a hare. 

Someday he would invite his friends for dinner, and tell them this. He would sketch them a verbal picture: pentacle, corpse, malevolent spirit, and hours left to dawn. _Can you imagine what it was like,_ he would ask, and considering themselves brave men, they would nod and smile.


End file.
